Forever His (14 page)

Yolande considered the offer for all of three seconds. “Why not? Your bargain is met, milady.” Turning, she shooed Gabrielle toward the door. “Come, let us leave Lady Christiane to her bath and her bed. She needs her rest. She shall have a busy day in the kitchens on the morrow.
Bonsoir
, milady.”

“
Bonsoir
.” Celine sank back in the hot, soapy water with a smile, feeling happier than she had since her arrival. Her stay here might just prove bearable after all. A little free time to puzzle out her problem, a hot bath at the end of every day, decent food, decent clothes ... if she played her cookies right, she might even negotiate herself a nifty hat or two. A soufflé would probably win her an entire new wardrobe.

She wondered, for a moment, whether it was wise to introduce
too
many modern dishes to these people—but she didn’t think pizza and pastries were going to change the course of history.

Besides, the real Christiane would be arriving soon, and everything would get straightened out. Then everyone would
have
to believe her story about being from 1993. And now that they were learning to trust her, they would be more willing to help her return home. With a sigh, she submerged beneath the surface of the water.

 Where the heck
was
the real Christiane, anyway?

***

Four days later, Celine hurried across the bailey—she had learned that was the term for the open ground between the castle and the curtain walls—wearing her new leather boots, embroidered green tunic and leggings, and an ankle-length cloak lined in soft marten fur. A matching hat topped off the ensemble: a cute little number that was sort of like a sailor’s hat, pinned to a length of fabric that went beneath her chin and kept her cheeks warm. Gabrielle called it a “barbette.” Celine hoped she could take it along when she returned home. It would make a beautiful addition to her collection, not to mention a nice souvenir of this ...

Adventure? Disaster? Escapade? She wasn’t sure what to call her present situation. Whatever it was, she hoped it would be over soon—and today, her hopes were higher than ever.

In the four days since Gaston had been gone, Celine had made quite a few improvements in the kitchens. She started by introducing something she couldn’t believe hadn’t been invented yet: rolling pins. With a little help from the castle’s armorer and carpenter, she also “invented” a few other items, things that would have been right at home in her great-grandmother’s house, from wire whisks to a spring-loaded chopper. It wasn’t quite a Cuisinart, but it certainly speeded things up.

While the cooks were eagerly soaking up her culinary lessons, she persuaded them to boil any water used for cooking or drinking, and to wash their hands before preparing every meal. They found these tasks bothersome, but gave in when she insisted. Being lady of the manor did have some advantages.

Seeing her success in the kitchens, Yolande had indulged Celine’s wish to help in other areas of the castle. The laundresses were pleased to find their job much easier with washboards and a simple wringer and wooden clothespins. They could now hang laundry to dry on lines inside, rather than outside on tree branches.

The seamstress was thrilled with her new seam ripper, pinking shears, and rotary cutter, and was putting her head together with the armorer over Celine’s sketches of a rudimentary treadle sewing machine.

The sentries were happiest of all, once Celine had shown them how to convert leather wine flasks into hot-water bottles: they filled them with water and a few embers from the fire, and wore them inside their cloaks to keep warm while patrolling the walls.

She found the lack of electricity frustrating but not insurmountable. A few of the things she had in mind—like gaslights and central heating and running water—would just take longer to figure out. She explained all of her “inventions” the same way she explained her cooking skills and the fact that she preferred to wear a tunic and leggings rather than a gown: she insisted it was all quite normal at her convent in Aragon.

Most people were too pleased to question their good fortune. A few still harbored ill will, but others were starting to call her brilliant.

Brilliant. That was quite a novel sensation, having people respect her not for her looks or her wealth or her pedigree—but for her skills and intelligence. She had always been the underachiever in a family of geniuses, always the one who never quite measured up.

Here she could really make a difference. Change people’s lives. Make things better, easier. It was irresistible, being needed. The more she helped, the more she wanted to help.

Maybe she had gotten a little
too
carried away by the feeling, but now she was turning her attention back to her own problem. There was someone she wanted to meet.

Snow sifted down from the sky as she crossed the bailey, sparkling like the sugar she had dusted across an angel food cake for last night’s dessert. Yolande had given her the afternoon off, and Etienne—the Eternal Shadow, Celine was starting to call him—had granted her request to take a walk alone, as long as she agreed not to go near the gate.

Celine moved briskly, heading for the huts at the rear of the chateau where many of the servants lived. With a few subtle questions over the past days, Celine had learned just who in the castle might have knowledge of astronomy or the moon. Always the answer was the same: Fiara.

The name was always whispered quickly, as if it inspired dread, and people weren’t willing to elaborate more than to say that Fiara was a mystic of great knowledge and power. Celine hadn’t even been able to find out if the person was a man or a woman, only that Fiara lived in the servants’ quarters. Which was exactly where she was headed now.

But as she made her way through the snow, a noisy disturbance near one of the outbuildings drew her attention. It was caused by a group of children. Celine almost hurried past—until she noticed what they were doing: they were gathered around a little girl of about ten, who faced them with a tear-streaked face while they taunted her.

“Thickhead,” one called.

“Heathen,” another shouted.

“Hag,” a third put in.

“Stop it!” Celine cried above the noise.

The children quieted instantly, turning to look up at her as she stalked over, drawing herself up to her full height.

“You wouldn’t like it if someone called
you
such awful names, would you?” That logic had always worked with her nephew, Nicholas. She might be seven hundred years in the past, but kids, she suspected, were kids.

“But she
is
a heathen,” one little boy insisted.

“We do not want her here,” another chimed in.

“Well, since she
is
here, don’t you think it would be better if you all tried to get along? No matter what her beliefs are?” Celine crossed her arms. “I don’t think I could teach new games to boys and girls who weren’t nice to others,” she said lightly.

That seemed to make an impact.

“No more
friz-bee?
” one asked in dismay.

“No more
glissades et echelles?
” another gasped.

There were soon many chastened and worried little faces in the group. Chutes and Ladders had proved to be a special favorite. Ping-Pong had also gone over well. Celine was considering an indoor version of miniature golf.

“I was going to show you something called Pictionary tonight.” She shrugged. “But not if I hear of you being unkind to someone again.”

The little girl who had been the object of the kids’ teasing soon found herself surrounded by a chorus of apologies. One by one, the children left, promising to be good and pleading for more after-supper games.

Celine sent them away with pats and reassurances. When they were gone, she went over and knelt beside the little girl, who kept her face lowered and didn’t move. Tear-tracks streaked her red cheeks. She had blond hair, tied in a long braid down her back, and a blue dress and mantle that were patched in places.

Celine felt her heart turn over. “I don’t think they’ll bother you anymore,” she said softly.

The girl sniffed, her lower lip quivering.

“You’re new here, aren’t you?” Celine tried again. “So am I.”

“I know.”

Celine smiled. At least she had a bit of a conversation going. That was encouraging. “No one liked me much, either, when I first got here.” She reached up, cautiously, and dried the girl’s cheeks with her gloved hands. “But now I think they’re warming up a bit. Sometimes it just takes a little time.”

The girl shook her head. “They will never like me. I am different.”

Celine’s heart gave another tug. How many times in her life had she said those same words herself? She had always been different. Taller than any girl in her class. Too skinny. Never as good in school as her brother and sister. Never quite able to measure up to what her parents wanted her to be. “You know, when I was about your age, everybody teased me, too. Because I was so tall. They called me Beanpole, or Beanie.”

The girl finally glanced up from beneath a fringe of dark lashes, examining Celine with startling blue eyes. “You
are
rather tall,” she said gravely.

“I am.” Celine nodded, laughing. “My name is ... Lady Christiane. What’s yours?”

“Fiara.”

“Fiara?” Celine almost choked, gasping and saying the name at the same time. “
You’re
Fiara?”

“Aye, and I already know who you are. You are not Lady Christiane, you are Celine. The lady of the moon.”

That declaration almost knocked Celine over. She gaped at the little girl, speechless. A strange tingle shivered up her back, raising the fine hairs at the nape of her neck. “What ... who ...
who told you my name?
”

“No one. You are the lady who came here on the moonlight. On the eve of the new year. The moon brought you here.” She cocked her head to one side. “Your back ... there is something odd ... does it hurt very much?”

Celine’s heart started to hammer. “How do you
know
all that?”

“I know many things.” The girl bit her lip and dropped her gaze. “That is why no one likes me. I should go now.” She turned to leave.

“Wait.” Celine caught her arm gently. “Please. If you ... if you know the moon brought me here, do you know
how
it brought me here? Do you know ... how it might send me back?”

The girl paused, as if thinking, then shook her head. “I am not sure. My mother knows more than I, but I am not allowed to speak of her.”

“Could
I
speak to your mother?”

“She is not here. She lives in a village, far away. She sent me here to live with my aunt b-because ...” She let the sentence trail off and bit her lower lip once more, as if unsure she should finish.

“You don’t have to tell me. You don’t even have to say where she lives. Could I send a message to her?”

“I do not see her often. I have to go now.”

Celine let her go but followed, feeling desperate. “Please, if there’s any way I could speak to her—it’s very important.”

Fiara kept walking. “You are a very nice lady of the moon. I will try. Would you like a kitten?”

“W-what?” Celine stuttered, caught off guard by the sudden change of subject.

“A kitten. My cat had kittens.” The girl stopped in the middle of the bailey and turned to face Celine with a tentative smile. “I will call one of them for you. The black-and-white one, I think.”

Fiara didn’t move. She didn’t say a word or make any sound at all, but just stood there with that shy little smile hovering on her lips.

A few seconds later, a small black-and-white kitten came bounding through the snow toward her.

Fiara scooped it up and cuddled it, rubbing her cheek against it, making a little purring sound. Then she handed it carefully to Celine. “He will stay with you now,” she stated.

Stunned, Celine didn’t know how to respond. She took the kitten, trying to hide her surprise at Fiara’s actions.
A mystic of great knowledge and power
, everyone had called her. “Th-thank you,” she managed at last.

“I will come see you if I can think of a way to send a message to my mother,” the little girl promised. A second later, she vanished around the corner of one of the outbuildings, leaving Celine alone with her gift.

The kitten, purring so hard its fragile body vibrated with sound, was sinking its tiny claws into her arm as it tried to climb closer into the warmth of her cloak. Celine glanced at it with a frown, trying to disengage the little feline.

He had a streak of black above one eye, like a raised eyebrow, and another sooty patch beneath his nose.

Celine couldn’t help but smile. The resemblance was just too striking. “There’s only one name for you,” she declared. “Groucho.”

The furry, miniature Marx brother mewed in reply and settled into the crook of her arm as she turned and headed back to the keep, her heart swelling with hope—
real
hope—for the first time since she had arrived here. Someone believed her! Someone knew the lunar eclipse had brought her here! Okay, so it was only a little girl—but it was s a start.

If she could just figure out some way to evade her Eternal Shadow and meet with the girl’s mother ...

“Lady Christiane!”

Celine lifted her gaze from Groucho to see the object of her thoughts running toward her from the direction of the castle. “I’m coming, Etienne.”

He reached her first, panting. “Milady! You must come back to the keep at once—”

“Why? What’s—’’

“Sir Gaston and the hunting party have returned! Everyone is telling milord what you have done, and he is most angry. He is also wounded, which does not improve his humor.” He took her arm. “Come! We dare not keep him waiting.”

W
ounded.
Celine froze in place, unable to move when Etienne grasped her elbow. Her heart seemed to be beating strangely. “What do you mean, Gaston is wounded?” She squeezed little Groucho so hard he hissed and sank his tiny claws into her arm.

“An injury suffered on the hunt. His anger is of greater concern.” Etienne tugged her forward. “Never have I seen him in such an ill humor.”